Monday, June 15, 2015

On August 24, last summer, around 4 o’clock in the
afternoon, Issam Abu Mustafa was inside preparing a meal which he thought would be a
treat for his family. Then, BOOM! An Israeli bomb killed his wife and four of
his children.

Issam’s wife, 6 year-old Osama, 8
year-old Mohammed, 12 year-old Raghad and 14 year-old Tasneen all died on the
spot. Thaer had his right leg amputated above the knee and he was sent to Germany where
doctors are still treating him for severe burns that cover most of his body.[1]

If it made the news at all, it was presented as a
statistic. Issam’s family was only five
of the 2,200 Palestinians, including 547 children killed by Israel, 68 percent of whom were 12
years old or younger. Ten year-old Thaer, the sole survivor from the back yard
massacre, is only one of the estimated 1,000 children in Gaza who sustained life time
disabilities.

We know very little about Mr. Issam Abu Mustafa. But what we
do know is significant. If he is old enough, he is one of the 750,000
Palestinians driven out of their homes in 1948 by force or fear. If he
is a little younger, and if he escaped the Nakba, he probably fled to Gaza as a refugee from
the six day war of 1967. Regardless, he is now living behind guarded fences as
a criminal. He has never committed a crime, nor has he ever been accused of
one. He is a victim of Israeli imperialism.
To the U.S.,
he is invisible. To Israel,
he is simply a nuisance.

For certain, he and his family lived through Operation Cast Lead which was started
by Israel on the night that
all America
was watching the election returns between Barack Obama and John McCain.

According to Noam Chomsky:

On November 4, while the media were
focused on the US
presidential election, Israeli troops entered Gaza and killed half a dozen Hamas militants.
That elicited a Hamas missile response and an exchange of fire. (All the deaths
were Palestinian.) In late December,
Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire. Israel rejected the offer,
preferring to launch Operation Cast Lead.[2]

A few Israelis in Tel Aviv demonstrated against the
slaughter of the people of Gaza.
They were attacked by hooligans as the police stood by and did nothing. Others took
lawn chairs and sat on a hill top overlooking Gaza to cheer every explosion.[3] And they would have much to cheer. Israeli
air corps flew nearly 3,000 sorties over Gaza
and dropped 1,000 tons of explosives
killing as many as 300 people in the first four minutes.[4]

In the course of Cast Lead, Israel
damaged or destroyed “everything in its way,” including 280 schools and
kindergartens, 1,500 factories and workshops, electrical, water and sewage
installations, 190 greenhouses, 80 percent of agricultural crops, and nearly
one-fifth of cultivated land. Whole neighborhoods were laid waste, fully
600,000 tons of rubble were left behind… 29 ambulances, almost half of Gaza’s 122 health
facilities (including 15 hospitals) and 45 mosque.[5]

Issam and his children would have also lived through Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012. Israel called it defense. The facts say otherwise. From January until November of that year, one
Israeli had been killed. During that same time, seventy-eight Palestinians had
been killed in attacks on Gaza.[6]

At least, we can know this. Issam, in his whole lifetime, never
lived a day with hope and security. In
spite of the agreement Israel
had made to lift the siege, the blockade brought Issam’s world to near collapse.
Food, medicine, fuel, parts for water and sanitation systems, paper and even such
things as children’s toys and shoes were denied entry. The fact is, Israel had killed more than two Palestinian
children per week for the previous fourteen years.[7]

“Yeah, yeah” a friend said to me. I know the story. We’ve
heard it before.”

I understand his feelings. Statistics and numbers can get
boring. But, it is not boring to
Isaam. Those statistics include his wife
and children. They were real people who
wanted to live as much as any child would want to live and enjoy life. Issam would overthrow his oppression if he could,
but he has no power or army. As far as Israel is
concerned, he is just a statistic. That’s all.

And, how does Israel justify itself to the
world? Gideon Levy, writing for one of Israel’s
leading newspapers, Haartz, calls it
“Hasbara,” a fancy word for propaganda:

By the way: Under
international law, those resisting occupation are not debarred from using force
to defend themselves. The issue is, does Israel have the right to use force
to maintain its illegal occupation. As
long as Gaza is
shut up like an outdoor prison, soldiers, either within the land or deployed to
surround its borders, maintain an occupation.

Friday, June 5, 2015

I seldom use this blogspot to defend myself. In fact, if I’m
not accused of being “anti-Semitic” from time to time, I feel like I am falling
down on the job.

However, when I was dis-invited to speak to a church group
because their leader said, “I understand perfectly well what is happening
between Israel
and the Palestinians, but Tom is a radical.” I had two responses.

First, if she really understood what is happening over
there, why is she not a radical. When
the rich and powerful openly oppress, abuse, misrepresent, rob and kill a
weaker people to take their land and resources, it is not a time for calmness
and business as usual. It is a time to scream for justice, understanding and
compassion.

Second, I am not
the radical. I want peace and a decent life for the Israelis and the
Palestinians. What’s radical about that?
In fact, I am a conservative. I want to conserve human rights and civil
rights and women’s rights. The radicals are in Washington and Tel Aviv.

I want to urge those extremist in Washington
to make the motto of “liberty and justice for all” the standards by which America treats
the world. What is radical about that?

It’s not the American people but those in Washington who are
screaming for war with Iran.
They are the ones who want to allow the most right wing bully of another nation
dictate our U.S.
foreign policy. They are the ones who are willing to sell out the average
American for one more term in Congress. And
they are the ones who over and over again put our moral standards in jeopardy before
the international community by voting the interest of Israel above the well-being of the United States. I
say, “That’s radical.”

Want radical? Representative Steve Israel, in an interview
with Mondoweiss, boldly declared his loyalty to Israel.

I support Israel through
and through, no matter what atrocities it commits.

My job as congressman from NY
district 3 is to advocate for Israel
at all cost. People argue that I harbor dual loyalty. They’re totally wrong I’m
just loyal to Israel.
We share a name after all… I have to keep the military aid flowing. Israel can
never have enough white phosphorus. Am I right?[1]

Now, that’s radical.

Also, compared to those drastic leaders in Tel Aviv, I am not radical.

Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, recently appointed Civil Administrator
responsible for all aspects of the occupation, said on August 1, 2013:

Palestinians
are beasts, they are not human.

Four months later he adds:

A Jew
always has a much higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.[2]

When elected officials justify Israel’s
brutal treatment of Palestinians on the grounds that God (Yahweh) gave Palestine to the Jews, and
when they quote Genesis 12 as a real estate deed, I see that as rather radical
and drastic. That’s when I become very conservative. I want to conserve the
moral and ethical teachings of their own Jewish prophets. I want to conserve
such things as:

--- Remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct
oppression, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16-17)

--- Thus says the Lord, Do justice and righteousness and deliver from
the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence
to the alien, the fatherless and the widow, nor shed innocent blood. (Jeremiah
22:3)

--- Let justice roll down like
waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:24)

--- Justice and only justice, you
shall follow that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you.
(Deuteronomy 16:20)

In fact, listen to the Bible and it is clear that God is a
God of justice. If you know this about God and you don’t know anything else,
you will know more of God than if you know everything else there is to know of
God, and you don’t know this. God is
passionate for justice.

The lady who called me a radical was right in being concerned
about the injustice brought about by the radicals in positions of leadership.
It’s just that I am not one of them.

Thomas Are

June 5, 2015

[1] Scott
Roth, Mondoweiss Exclusive: One on One
with Rep. Steve Israel. Mondoweiss, April 1, 2015.

Thomas L. Are

I preached for forty three years in the Presbyterian Church before retiring. If anyone would ever refer to me as a Liberation Theologian, I would be pleased. I started blogging several years ago to express my political and religious concern for justice, especially justice for the Palestinians.